Chew On This

China has been a major stabilizing factor in the global economy. Without its continued growth, things would have been a lot worse these past few years. Well the Hang Seng is now down roughly 35% from its peak last November.

Death, Taxes and Greek Default

Two out of three of these are unavoidable. Ironically, the Greek debt problem proves that taxes are avoidable as tax evasion is apparently an art form in Greece, so that just leaves death and Greek default. Nothing new here, just folks coming to reality. Seriously, anyone with brain cells should be able to read the stats and know that Greek default is in the cards and has been for well over a year. Problem is, most people do not read the stats. Well, they are ugly - worse than even shave the dog's butt and teach him to walk backwards - ugly. It is just irrational to me that the folks in the EU are keeping it on life support. Either let it die or come together and do a Euro bond that all the EU supports (sorry Germany but it is time to decide whether to get out of the pool).

Now I am really pissed off. Five weeks ago I had to sell some put options on AMR - you know the parent of American Airlines. I had these for like a year and they were up a bit but I had to sell before I wanted as I had to pay a contractor for work on the house. Today, these options closed 157% higher than where I sold a mere five weeks ago. Unfreakin' believable! But I still have puts on Alcoa that did quite well today. Oh well.

Now here is the deal. I would assume that a Greece default is already baked in the cake on stock prices. It is not a big surprise as it has clearly been coming for over a year. I admit the fallout is what has folks disturbed and what that will be no one knows. We will see.

By the way, I have no doubt the EU will come in and save the day and not let Greece default - yet. Their banks have too much at stake and they are still in kicking the can mode. Greece will default, but probably not just yet.

Disclosures: none

"Great Prices on Stocks and Bonds"

So I am watching this commercial for a brokerage company that does retirement planning and the like. You can use them to buy stocks and bonds and the like. They will hold your investments in an account and advise you on investments. In this commercial, they had some worldly guy saying that they can get "great prices on stocks and bonds."

SERIOUSLY!! You are advertising getting me good prices on stocks and bonds?!! Do you get some special deal the rest of the brokers do not get? Do y0u know something the rest of us do not know? How can you say this in a TV commercial?! These companies are idiots!

I digress from my usual programming but this commercial simply set me off a bit. People buy into this BS and it upsets me.

So I hate to say this (my son says we do not say hate) but we are very, very close to where the "can" cannot be kidked any more. Not saying it is here just yet - but I am listening for that pin to drop. It will.

Y0u are reading this thinking it is BS with no substance, I agree on no substance as I am too busy to put that in. I will in time but meanwhile, watch out.